The Opening Ceremony of the 11th National Games at the Jinan Olympic Sports Centre recently relied on 2,500 lighting fixtures. This number exceeded the 2004 Athens Olympic Games opening ceremony and is very close to the Beijing Olympic Games. Furthermore the show utilised 246 PIGI projectors for a 20,000sq.m video screen, eight grandMA full-size and 40 MA NSPs (Network Signal Processor) controlled more than 40.000 parameters. Each MA NSP can calculate 2048 channels.
Lighting designer and chief programmer Weng Chun Pu reported, "The grandMA supplied us with an outstanding performance. If we haven't had the grandMA, we couldn't have realised the show the way it is."
Besides the 40 MA NSPs the network included four virtual LANs (VLAN) and three optical routers. In addition, HP switches, armoured cable and waterproof cable connectors guaranteed the stability of the network. In an MA-Net, the MA NSP can be used as a decentralised channel expansion for most of the grandMA consoles. For this purpose, not only the DMX signals are distributed among the MA NSPs, but so are all necessary calculations.
Beijing-Color and Shanghai SMG supplied the lighting equipment. ACE - Advanced Communication Equipment Co provided technical support. ACE is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting in China. Paul Collison, Dong Jiang and Zhang Wei were associate lighting designers. Collison also worked as programmer with Wu Lei Ping and Weng Chun Pu. Lighting project manager was Chen Hong.
(Jim Evans)
